Systems and methods for managing documents for law firms

1. A system for a knowledge management system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that contains instructions that are readable by the processor and cause the processor to:

receive a query that indicates at least one legal topic from a hierarchy of legal topics;

provide a response to the query indicating each work-product document and each case law document that matches the at least one legal topic, wherein the processor is operable to, prior to providing the response:

retrieve each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a first database; and

retrieve each case law document that matches the at least one legal topic from a second database;

determine a validity status of at least one case cited within each work-product document, resulting in a validity indicator, the validity indicator for each work-product document indicating the validity status of the at least one case;

indicate, in the response provided to the query, a reliability of each work-product document using the validity indicator and a rating indicator for each work-product document, the rating indicator for each work-product document indicating a user rating of each work-product document based on previous users of each work-product document;

index each work-product document according to the hierarchy of legal topics based on at least one legal citation and a set of text;

index each case law document according to the hierarchy of legal topics;

receive a second query for a particular case law document; and

provide a second response to the second query indicating each work-product document which includes at least one legal citation associated with the particular case law document according to a depth-of-treatment value, the depth-of-treatment value indicates a degree to which each work-product document evaluates the particular case law document.

2. The system recited in claim 1 , wherein the query is an enterprise search query.

3. The system recited in of claim 1 , wherein the first and second databases are separated by a firewall.

4. The system recited in claim 1 , wherein the degree to which each work-product document is evaluated is based on at least a count that each legal citation references the particular case law document.

5. The system recited in claim 4 , wherein, each work-product document and each case law document is associated with a respective date, wherein, the second response is organized according to the depth-of-treatment value and a chronological order based on the respective date.

6. The system recited in claim 1 , wherein the processor further converts the work-product document into a markup language.

7. The system recited in claim 1 , wherein the query is received from an agent of a law firm, via a user-device, wherein each work-product document comprises internal law-firm content including at least one of briefs, client letters and legal memoranda.

8. The system recited in claim 1 , wherein, each work-product document and each case law document is associated with a respective date, wherein, each work-product document and non-work product document that matches the at least one legal topic indicated by the response, is organized according to a chronological order based on the respective date.

9. The system recited in claim 1 , wherein the processor is further operable to:

provide the hierarchy of legal topics for display on a user-device; and

indicate a number of work-product documents associated with each legal topic of the hierarchy of legal topics.

10. The system recited in claim 1 , wherein each work-product document is associated with an indicator that identifies an author of the work-product document and an office location of the author.

11. A tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable media having software encoded thereon, the software, when executed by a processor, operable to:

index at least one work-product document from a law firm according to a hierarchy of legal topics based on at least one legal citation and at least a set of text corresponding to the at least one work-product document, each legal citation further associated with a case law document having legal precedence;

receive a query that indicates at least one legal topic from the hierarchy of legal topics;

provide a response to the query indicating each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic and each case law document associated with each legal citation corresponding to each work-product document, wherein the software is operable to, prior to providing the response:

retrieve each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a first database; and

retrieve each case law document associated with each legal citation from a second database;

determine a validity status of each case law document associated with each legal citation corresponding to each work-product document, resulting in a validity indicator;

indicate, in the response provided to the query, a reliability of each work-product document using the validity indicator and a rating indicator, the rating indicator indicating a user rating of each work-product document based on previous users of each work-product document;

receive a second query for a particular case law document; and

provide a second response to the second query indicating each work-product document which includes the at least one legal citation associated with the particular case law document according to a depth-of-treatment value, the depth-of-treatment value indicates a degree to which each work-product document evaluates the particular case law document.

12. A method for facilitating a knowledge management system comprising:

receiving at least one work-product document from a law firm, each work-product document including at least one legal citation and at least a set of text, the at least one legal citation associated with a non-work-product document having legal precedence;

indexing each work-product document according to a hierarchy of legal topics based on the at least one legal citation and the set of text;

indexing each non-work-product document associated with the at least one legal citation included in each work-product document according to the hierarchy of legal topics;

generating a validity indicator that indicates a validity status of the legal precedence for each non-work-product document associated with the at least one legal citation included in each work-product document;

generating an indicator that indicates a user rating of each work-product document based on previous users of each work-product document;

receiving a query that indicates at least one legal topic of the hierarchy of legal topics; and

providing a response to the query indicating each work-product document and non-work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic, the response indicating a reliability of each work-product document using the validity indicator for each non-work-product document and the rating indicator for each work-product document, wherein providing the response includes:

retrieving each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a first database; and

retrieving each non-work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a second database;

receiving a second query for a particular non-work-product document; and

providing a second response to the second query indicating each work-product document which includes at least one legal citation associated with the particular non-work-product document according to a depth-of-treatment value, the depth-of-treatment value indicates a degree to which each work-product document evaluates the particular non-work-product document.